Clearwater Sunrise disaster
The ''Clearwater Sunrise ''disaster occurred on 18 April 2014 when the MS Clearwater Sunrise car ferry left her berth in Leeds Docklands with 564 people aboard bound for Zeebrugge, Belgium, with her bow doors open. Soon after leaving the harbour she capsized, with the loss of 94 lives. One rescue diver was also killed. The accident overtook the sinking of the MS Diamond in 2012 to become the worst shipping accident in Leeds history. The resultant pollution from the capsizing vessel caused the a serious environmental disaster. Vessel The vessel involved in the accident was the MS Clearwater Sunrise, owned by Leeds Ferries and delivered in late 2010. It is the only vessel of it's class, being built as a one-off to ease capacity issues on the popular Cocoa to Zeebrugge route. Background The boat was tailored specifically for the ports at Cocoa and Zeebrugge. However, on the day of the disaster, a fatal accident inside the Port of Cocoa meant that it was closed for the day. Usually this would lead to the cancellation of services to and from Zeebrugge, but as there were a particularly high number of bookings for the route on 18 April, the decision was made to deviate from the normal route and operate service between Zeebrugge and the nearby, larger, Leeds Docklands instead. However, the Clearwater Sunrise was not tailored for Leeds Docklands, and as such did not fit well. The car decks entry point was a good two or three metres higher than the level of the entry ramps at Leeds Docklands, meaning that cars could not board the ferry. However, the captain compensated for this by filling the bow ballast tanks, making the rear of the ship sink down by three metres, thus levelling out the step between the car deck and onshore entry ramps. When the ship was cleared to depart, the bow ballast tanks were emptied to their normal state. However, the bow doors were not closed, and the ship departed with them wide open. Sinking The ship began to take on water from the rear, through the open bow doors, when the ship reached a speed of 15 knots. As water flooded into the lowermost car deck, the uneven loading of the vessel caused it to become instable and list to starboard. As the ship began to list, more water poured into the lower deck, until it was completely submerged. Only at this point did a passenger alert the captain to what was going on; the captain dialled the coastguard and ordered passengers to evacuate the ship. However, it was now far too late for the vessel and for many of the passengers, as the severe list meant that lifeboats could not be launched and passengers had to jump into the sea to survive. Five minutes after the ship began to take on water, the upper car deck was breached, and water began to flood into it. Water gushed rapidly into the upper car deck, preventing the majority of people from escaping and causing the ship to sink much more rapidly than before. The uneven loading of the upper deck righted the ship for roughly six seconds, before it began to rapidly list to port. Within thirty seconds, the ship's forward momentum ceased and exactly half of the ship was underwater, as it listed ninety degrees to port. Increased water entering the ship caused it to become increasingly unstable, and eight minutes after it began to sink, it flipped exactly upside-down (a list of 180 degrees). At this point the ship stabilised in it's new flipped position, and as more water poured in, it began to sink downwards. Strong underwater currents pulled the ship onto a shallow underwater sandbar, where it ran aground in an upside-down position with 92% of the vessel underwater. Aftermath Rescue operation The lifeguard arrived on the scene shortly after the ferry ran aground and set to work pulling passengers out of the cold Atlantic waters around the ferry. Fishing vessels and other passenger and cargo boats traversing the busy shipping lane near the accident site deviated from their course to help the lifeguard in pulling nearly four hundred people out of the freezing ocean and taking them to shore. Divers were called in from across a large area following eyewitness reports that there were many people still trapped inside the Clearwater Sunrise. Divers began to search the wreck just over an hour after the accident, managing to rescue around twenty people. Fifty people were later rescued alive from the kitchens. However, no such look was incurred on later dives, with only dead bodies being recovered. Divers eventually recovered 94 dead bodies from the submerged ship during a rescue operation that was often interrupted by poor weather conditions. One rescue diver was killed through asphyxiation after becoming trapped inside the ship during foul weather and running out of oxygen in his diving tanks. Environmental disaster In the days following the disaster, fuel oil leaked from the ship's fuel tanks and engine unabated, killing nearby marine life. A large amount of the oil leaked from the ship before the tanks and engine were emptied manually by 21 April. None of the oil reached the shore, but thousands of fish were killed by the oil offshore and later washed up on nearby beaches. Seagoing birds were also killed by the oil spill. On 23 April, nearby Cocoa Beach was evacuated when cars and other debris began to wash up on the shore. This was apparently to prevent looting. ERRV Suspense incident During the rescue operation, several people were injured when the lifeguard vessel ERRV Suspense crashed into the sinking hull of the MS Clearwater Sunrise, punching a hole in the side of the ship and allowing water to gush into a previously sealed area. Reports suggest that the Suspense suffered an engine and/or rudder failure and slammed into the side of the vessel uncontrollably at a speed of around 20 knots, leading to the injury of sixty people aboard. Passengers aboard the Suspense were transferred onto other rescue vehicles and the boat was tugged to shore. However, damage incurred from the collision led the Suspense to capsize in port on 21 April, and it was subsequently recovered from the seabed and onto the dockside. On 23 April, it was placed in a dry dock pending repair work. The collision was blamed for the deaths of at least thirty people who were sheltering inside the area of the ship flooded by the hole created in the collision. The captain of the ERRV Suspense was arrested but later released without charge. Salvage operation The salvage operation began on 23 April, when the ship was purchased from Leeds Ferries by local Leeds scrapyard Cerrocea Metallurgical for a sum of £1. It was later reclassified from "motor ship" to "dead vessel", confirming it's fate as a hull loss. The scrapyard renamed the vessel DV Cerrocea III. Later that day, two floating crane barges, SSCV Home Victory and SSCV Victorious, were sent over from the Port of Home to help right the ship. The righting was supposed to take place that afternoon, but was suspended due to poor weather conditions. The plan is to right the ship and tow it back to Leeds Shipyard, where it will enter a dry dock and be scrapped there by Cerrocea Metallurgical. Depending on the damage to the ship, holes may be patched up with tin plating as a temporary fix to allow it to float back to the shipyard. If it turns out to be too badly damaged, it will be dragged to deeper water and sunk to create an artificial reef. Cause The cause of the disaster was initially unclear, until divers sighted the bow doors open. Although possible that water or a foreign object had forced them open during the sinking, this seemed unlikely. Eyewitness reports from the shore and from on board confirmed suspicions that the ferry departed with it's car loading doors at the bow end of the ship in the fully open position. The captain and key crew members were subsequently arrested on suspicion of manslaughter. Later, charges of abandoning ship and unlawful killing were also pressed against them, the former as a result of CCTV footage of the captain and key crew members jumping into the sea to safety just moments after being informed of water flooding the lower decks. Questioning of the captain revealed that he did not usually have to empty the bow ballast tanks as the ship was tailored for the ports of Cocoa and Zeebrugge and not Leeds Docklands. In what the captain described as a "moment of confusion", he returned the bow ballast tanks to their normal state, thinking he had closed the bow doors prior to doing this when in fact he hadn't. The increased workload the captain was faced with therefore contributed to the accident. It was later revealed that the boatswain, whose job was to tell the captain when the doors had closed and sealed, had fallen asleep on duty. However, it was also confirmed that the captains of Leeds Ferries ships often do not wait for the boatswain's permission to leave, as they have a light on the bridge dashboard telling them if the doors are open. In the case of the ''Clearwater Sunrise ''this light was known to have been malfunctioning for weeks, and as such was also ignored; therefore, it was concluded that the captain had left the port without the permission of the boatswain and without the help of dashboard warning lights, and as such the bow doors were not closed and the ship subsequently capsized.